ADAMS Ellen (dir.) : “Disability Studies and the Classical Body : The Forgotten Other”

It argues that disability and disabled people are the ‘forgotten other’ of not just Classics, but also the Humanities more widely. Beyond the moral merits of rectifying this neglect, this book also provides a series of approaches and case studies that demonstrate the intellectual value of engaging with disability studies as classicists and exploring the classical legacy in the medical humanities. The book is presented in four parts: ‘Communicating and controlling impairment, illness and pain’; ‘Using, creating and showcasing disability supports and services’; ‘Real bodies and retrieving senses: disability in the ritual record’; and ‘Classical reception as the gateway between Classics and disability studies’. Chapters by scholars from different academic backgrounds are carefully paired in these sections in order to draw out further contrasts and nuances and produce a sum that is more than the parts. The volume also explores how the ancient world and its reception have influenced medical and disability literature, and how engagements with disabled people might lead to reinterpretations of familiar case studies, such as the Parthenon.

This book is primarily intended for classicists interested in disabled people in the Greco-Roman past and in how modern disability studies may offer insights into and reinterpretations of historic case studies. It will also be of interest to those working in medical humanities, sensory studies, and museum studies, and those exploring the wider tension between representation and reality in ancient contexts. As such, it will appeal to people in the wider Humanities who, notwithstanding any interest in how disabled people are represented in literature, art, and cinema, have had less engagement with disability studies and the lived experience of people with impairments.

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Sommaire :

Ellen ADAMS, “Disability studies and the classical body: the forgotten other. Introduction”

Part 1. Communicating and controlling impairment, illness and pain

Michael J. FLEXER and Brian HURWITZ, “Two troubles: the dramatic tragedy of Western medicine”

Georgia PETRIDOU, “‘There is a pain – so utter’: Narrating chronic pain and disability in antiquity and modernity”

Part 2. Using, creating and showcasing disability supports and services

Jane DRAYCOTT, “Prostheses in classical antiquity: a taxonomy”

Sophie GOGGINS, “Displaying the forgotten other in museums: prostheses at the National Museums Scotland”

Ellen ADAMS, “New light on ‘the viewer’: sensing the Parthenon galleries in the British Museum”

Part 3. Real bodies and retrieving senses: disability in the ritual record

Emma-Jayne GRAHAM, “Interactional sensibilities: bringing ancient disability studies to its archaeological senses”

Patricia BAKER and Sarah FRANCIS, “Rational capacity and incomplete adults: the mentally impaired in classical antiquity”

Part 4: Classical reception as the gateway between Classics and disability studies

Edith HALL, “The immortal forgotten other gang: dwarf Cedalion, lame Hephaestus, and blind Orion”

Helen KING, “A history of our own? Using Classics in disability histories”

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